The Progress of Education Reform: Funding Dual Credit Programs PDF - More than 87% of America's public high schools offer their students the opportunity to gain college credit prior to graduation. Learning opportunities that allow students to gain college-level credit often are referred to as "dual credit" programs, and they are experiencing a growth in both the number of students who take advantage of them and the number of schools that offer them. (Mike Griffith, Education Commission of the States, January 2009)...

The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation - The 9th Annual AP Report to the Nation reports on each state’s efforts to improve high school achievement by involving greater segments of the student population — and traditionally underserved students in particular — in rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) courses. (College Board, February 2013)...

The 8th Annual AP Report to the Nation - This report examines state and national Advanced Placement (AP) program data and provides states with a reference point to understand their successes and challenges and set meaningful, data-driven goals to prepare more students for success in college. The data include: (1) subject-specific results; (2) state-specific reports; (3) AP exams taken in U.S. public schools by the graduating class of 2011; (4) changes in equity and excellence from 2001 to 2011; and (5) raw numbers behind percentages in tables and additional AP program data. (College Board, February 2012)...

Advanced Placement Report to the Nation 2006 - This report provides information on Advanced Placement (AP) course- and exam-taking by the Class of 2005. According to the study, a greater proportion of American students are scoring a 3 or higher on an AP exam than ever before, though black and Native American students are substantially underrepresented in AP programs nationwide, and Latino students are underrepresented in all but 12 states. Part II of the report recognizes the schools in each AP subject that help a larger proportion of their total school population succeed on a particular AP exam than any other school in the world, and provides feedback for educators to improve student achievement in each AP discipline. State reports are also available, providing information on changes between 2004 and 2005 in the number of students taking AP exams and, conversely, the number of AP exams taken by students in each state. State reports also show trends in AP exam taking by low-income, Latino and African American students since 2000 and from 1995 to 2000. (The College Board, 2006)
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Dual Credit and Exam-Based Courses in U.S. Public High Schools: 2002-03 - This and its companion piece – Dual Enrollment of High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2002-03 – are the first national reports on the characteristics of dual-credit courses. The findings address the (1) prevalence of dual credit, Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) course offerings in U.S. public high schools; (2) location and educational focus of dual-credit courses; (3) characteristics of courses for dual credit (course sequence, course instructors, student composition); and (4) eligibility requirements for enrolling in dual-credit courses. Statistics are disaggregated by school size, urbanicity, geographic region and percent minority enrollment. According to the report, over six in 10 schools offering dual-credit courses set eligibility requirements for students to enroll in such courses; in 42% of such schools, one requirement was teacher recommendation. (Tiffany Waits, J. Carl Setzer and Laurie Lewis, National Center for Education Statistics, April 2005)...

How Well Do Advanced Placement (AP) Students Perform on the TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and and Physics Tests? - For this report, a national sample of AP Calculus (AB or BC) and AP Physics students were given the 1995 TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and TIMSS Physics test. The AP Calculus students scored higher on the TIMSS Advanced Mathematics exam than students in all countries but France. AP Physics students came in fourth on the TIMSS Physics test behind students in Norway, Sweden and the Russian Federation. Students who scored a 3 or higher on the AP Physics assessment, however, posted higher scores on the TIMSS physics test than these countries. (Eugenio J. Gonzalez, Kathleen M. O’Connor and Julie A. Miles, TIMSS International Study Center, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, June 2001)...

The Advanced Placement Expansion of the 1990s: How Did Traditionally Underserved Students Fare? - The researcher examined student data in Texas to evaluate the impact of state and local initiatives aimed at increasing Advanced Placement (AP) course participation and test-taking. While the percentage of schools with an AP program grew from 1994 to 2000, low-income and rural schools were much less likely to have AP programs than their non-rural and wealthier counterparts. The researcher also noted that, while schools with significant black and Hispanic populations have AP course offerings comparable to white schools, black and Hispanic students are half as likely to enroll in AP as are white students. Black and Hispanic student participation in AP courses increased slightly from 1994 to 2000, while low income students were found to participate at roughly one-third the rate of students who are not low-income. Although low-income student participation rose 20% from 1994 to 2000, all three groups were still “substantially underrepresented in AP courses in 2000”. (Kristin Klopfenstein, Education Policy Analysis Archives, vol. 12,no. 68, December 2004)...